–for Pam and Michael

1
I think we’re all children when lightning bugs mate
and surely at home in a mulberry tree, those branches
lending us sanctuary–for the best of all reasons:
For the three of us at the back of the yard–together.
And our “other brother,” Mike,
who lived across the street with “Muddy.”
And with “Pokey.” And with Renee. For her.
For her, even in high school, when, converting, she
became Lutheran, and, after that, seldom climbed the tree.
It’s my guess she knew, by that time,
that the berries were filled with small, white bugs. 

For our having missed that detail,
perhaps due to their smallness, or to ours.
Or maybe they didn’t frighten us like Ol’ Henry did.
For Ol’ Henry, who pushed his wooden cart through the gravel,
his slow gait giving a fearsome drama to our part of Joplin.
For interruptions in the alley during baseball,
where I was a kicking-wanna-be (after Spahnie). I,
who knew major league statistics better than the guys,
stopped mid-wind-up to untangle my limbs,
while old “Tommy” eased his car slowly past each rock
and past the mulberry tree that shaded the rock
that was third base. The mulberry tree
gave us hands with juicy berries: berries the color of church-carpet. 

For leaving the ground like rockets in stealth mode,
or up that tree like chattering squirrels, making plans
for the vegetable can, kicked at night from yard to yard–
hiding, seeking. For bags of locust shells.
The request line, called, giggling, after seven, using
made-up names instead of our own. For those summers,
when childhood gave us the gift of each other. 

2 

I should have been in the school-chapel, by ‘69–
newly married, in Charlotte, safe in the wide arms of
God. Instead, I’m atop an old mulberry tree.
Sure the tree bears fruit:  The rooms keep getting darker,
each ascending floor more mysterious.
The floors go up and up.My friends are my children: Victor and Troy.
Both children become Michael.
And we’re playing with Linda at church, after the meal.
“Mother, May I?” comes softly from whispering lips. Or
are we at the ice cream social,
where, with several saw horses, in the sweltering August heat,
the deacons blocked off Fourth and Pearl? We tip-toed
up rib-coated, baptistery stairs.
And what did we risk by running in church?

3 

Tonight’s sky, like the droning of crickets,
like briquettes in the shadows, bituminous coal,
the cloud-concealed moon,
far, far away–breathing smog.
Tallish trees in the distance
with leaves and trunks feathered into nightfall.
Even the umbrage fades into evening’s soft face.
There’s no color now. No mulberry tree.
Just a barrel beneath the elms,
where, two days ago, our neighbor’s cat gave birth to
one stillborn kitten and two that were alive.
At dusk, everything’s black. 

I’m not afraid of the dark.
But about midnight, despite well-designed eves,
a pelting rain wets my outstretched legs. Low
flashes of lightening cause me to shiver,
to reach for a blanket, the fern to my left
flex its emerald-bright fronds. At dawn,
an infant sun peeks shyly through.
A row of trees, sky-scraper tall. In the distance:
green leaves, trunks, yellow-brown, drops of liquid silver.
That’s not all from memory though.
Yes, there’s nothing like life in the firefly shadows:
Sometimes I dance with my shadow and sing songs to the moon.

first published in Facets: A Literary Magazine and now in Paper Snowflakes, available from Southern Hum Press